


Castiel Hates Time Lords

by anAwfulLotofRunning



Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural
Genre: Doctor Who trivia night, Gen, M/M, Portland, Portland Oregon, Tardis Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anAwfulLotofRunning/pseuds/anAwfulLotofRunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Sam wins a bet, Cas discovers Doctor Who, and Dean realizes something important. Warning: Not to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>A not-Valentine's Day present for John :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castiel Hates Time Lords

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before I realized what a huge effing nerd Dean really is :) 
> 
> I still think he'd at least _pretend_ to be cranky about this whole scenario though ;)

~

“You sure you want to do this Sammy? It’s not too late to back down.” 

Sam and Dean are in the Impala, staking out a Washington warehouse. The sky is grey, they are out of whiskey, and it’s been hours since anyone has entered the building.

“We’re stuck here until Cas gets back anyway,” Sam observes. “Let's go."

Dean grins mischievously “Alright then. But just remember that I’ve never lost at ten fingers before.” His face lights up. “Oh hey, there’s my first round!” He holds up both hands in the air, fingers splayed, and laughs as his brother has to put one finger down. 

“Fine,” Sam gives him an exaggerated glare. “I’ve never slept with someone I’m related to.”

“She was our third cousin!” Dean yelps. “It was legal.” He looks sour as he puts a finger down.

“Okay I’ve....never broken Lucifer out of his cage.” 

“Dean! That’s just low,” but Sam is laughing. The apocalypse is past, Lucifer and Michael are both safely contained, and Sam is ensouled and whole again. It’s finally safe to laugh at these things.

“I’ve never been in love with an angel,” Sam retorts.

Dean juts out his chin out, defiant. “Neither have I.”

“Dean, put your damn finger down.” 

There is a brief wrestling match, which Sam wins. His hands are approximately twice the size of Dean’s, and Dean would rather admit to a lie than lose a finger to this stupid game.

“Fine,” Dean huffs. “Well, I’ve never slept with a demon.”

Sam puts and finger down and glares. “I’ve never slept with a hooker. Not while I had a soul, anyway.”

Dean laughs appreciatively even as he loses another point. “Good one Sammy. Okay, I’ve never....I’ve never been in love with a werewolf.”

“Wasn’t love,” Sam counters. “I don’t lose a point.” 

Dean groans. It’s a cheap technicality, but rules are rules.

“I’ve never been abducted by faeries.” Sam grins. 

One more down for Dean. “I’ve never been without a soul,” he says dryly, and Sam puts down another finger.

They match points for five more rounds until:

“Last one, Dean,” Sam says, and his eyes glint a little. “If I get this one, I get to pick the restaurants for a week.” He pauses, to look right at Dean. 

“I’ve never run screaming from a pint-sized dog.”

~

“This place, Sammy, really? I didn’t even know they had bars for nerds.”

It’s been a long week of Mediterranean food and salad buffets, and now they are in Portland, standing outside a brick building that Sam keeps calling “The Tardis Room.” 

Dean doesn’t want to know what that means. 

“It’s not health food, at least,” Sam supplies helpfully. “Everything here is fried in animal lard. The owner is British and everything.” 

“Dude, that is so nerdy,” Dean says, but he smiles a little. “Why is everyone so obsessed with the damn BBC?”

“Not everyone,” Sam corrects. “Just the smart people.”

Dean glares at his brother and opens the door. 

The restaurant inside is crowded and noisy. A man wearing a bowtie and suspenders stands on a small stage, getting jeers and hollers from the crowd as he reads out what sound like trivia questions. 

“Ooh Doctor Who trivia!” Sam says excitedly. “I read about this online.” He bobs up and down on the balls of his feet, eyes shining as he listens to the questions. “Oh I know this one!” he says to Dean.

Dean leaves him there, bursting with puppy-like excitement, and pushes through the enthusiastic crowd. He gets a few glares as he goes, and realizes that his own expression is probably none-too-pleasant. He finds the bar in the back room, and breathes a sigh of relief. 

“I’ll have a glass of whatever’s on tap,” he says, and he's grateful when a full glass is set down in front of him moments later. 

He looks up to see a girl with black hair and thick rimmed glasses, and he idly thinks that she is cute. Her tight tee shirt reads “Keep Calm and Call the Doctor.” Dean assumes this is some sort of innuendo.

“How you doing tonight, sweetheart?” he asks, giving her a winning smile. 

“Taken,” she says, sweetly. “And I’m doing just fine. How about yourself?” 

“Stuck in nerd hell,” he answers automatically, and then realizes how rude that must have sounded. “Oh sorry, I meant...”

She laughs. “No, it’s fine. You don’t look like you fit in around here. It’s not so bad here though. I’m T.J.” 

She reaches a hand across the small counter, and he shakes it. 

“Dean.”

A brunette joins them then, and smiles easily up at T.J. “Shirley temple, please.”

“Oh hey!” T.J. beams at her, and leans across the counter for an open mouthed kiss. “I missed you today.”

They lean in to talk conspiratorially, as if nothing else in the world exists. They are gesturing wildly with dainty hands, and laughing for only each other. Dean has clearly been dismissed. 

He swivels on his barstool to take in the scenery. There are cardboard cutouts of people he doesn’t recognize, posters with quotes and images of characters he doesn’t know. There are also large, 3D models of...well, he’s not sure what they are. They remind him of upside down trash cans with...is that a toilet plunger sticking out? He finishes his drink, wishing he had ordered something stronger. 

He takes in the rest of room: the neon lights of a pinball machine, glow-in-the-dark stars plastered to the wall, and then--

“Cas? Where did you come from?”

“Hello Dean,” Cas says quietly. His eyes look sad, hurt, and Dean doesn’t know why. But then his tone becomes brisk, businesslike. “Sam summoned me. He seemed to think you required my company.” 

Dean can’t help it. He grins. “Always Cas. Always. Come on, can I buy you a drink?” 

Cas looks uncomfortable. 

“Or not,” Dean says, easily. “Let’s go check on Sammy before he pisses himself with excitement.” 

Thankfully, by the time they reach the main room of the pub, the trivia nonsense seems to have ended. People are filtering out the door and milling around the room, talking in small groups and giggling occasionally. 

“They liked me,” Sam reports triumphantly when he sees them. “I joined the ‘Free the Oods’ team and I nailed seven answers. I even won free chips. Look!” He holds up a basket of french fries proudly. 

“Chips?” Dean asks. “Did they turn you British too?” 

Sam makes a face. Then he grins again and grabs Dean’s hand. 

Dean only pretends to resist as his gigantic baby brother drags him around the nerd bar, pointing at things and explaining them with nonsensical words. The truth is, it is too good to see Sam this way again, after everything they’ve both gone through. Huge and unguarded and smiling and free. 

Dean belatedly registers that he is dragging Cas along with him, holding on to his surprisingly smooth hand. 

Sam comes to an abrupt halt and Cas crashes straight in to Dean. They are standing in front of a life-size cardboard cut-out of a man wearing a tan tweed jacket and a crooked bow tie. 

“It’s the Doctor!” Sam explains proudly. 

Dean realizes that he is still lightly gripping Cas’s hand, and drops it, awkwardly. 

Cas tilts his head, studying the cut-out. “He doesn’t look like a doctor,” he observes mildly. “He looks more like child dressed up as an old man.” 

“Well, yeah,” Sam says, “but, he’s actually really, really old. He travels around the universe helping people, and he’s got a blue box that can take him anywhere in time and space.”

Cas gives him a severely unimpressed look. “What kind of angel is he?” 

“No, Cas,” Sam laughs. “He’s not an angel. He’s a time lord.”

“A what?” Cas now looks genuinely confused.

“A time lord. It’s a...never mind, Cas. It’s fiction, okay?” 

Sam and Cas start to argue, and Dean wanders to the bar for more beer. He talks with T.J. again, and decides that he likes her. She is warm and friendly, and he likes that she wasn’t rude when she turned him down. It was just a simple, matter-of-fact “no.” 

He orders a third beer, and she leans over to whisper conspiratorially. “Kira at the corner table has been eyeing you all night. And just so you know, she single and straight. Or bi maybe...”

“Thanks,” Dean says, “but I’m good.”

Suddenly, he hears two familiar voices, shouting at each other, and he runs back to where he left Dean and Cas.

“I don’t understand the purpose of this phone box,” Cas is shouting, angry in a way that Dean has rarely seen. “I can travel anywhere in time and space without artificial aid. Why should a man who takes shortcuts be awarded with admiration?” 

Sam gives Dean a pleading look, obviously as confused as Dean is by the outburst. 

Dean puts his hands on Cas’s shoulders and says gently, “Take a breath, Cas. What do you need?”

Cas swivels on the spot, fixes Dean with a nasty glare, and bolts out of the bar.

“What did you do to him?” Dean hisses, trying to ignore the stares they are getting. “What the hell did you say?”

“I don’t know, dude!” Sam protests. “We were just talking, and then you went to the bar, and all of a sudden he was ranting really loudly about time lords.” 

“I hate this place,” Dean mutters, and stomps off in search of his friend. 

Luckily, Cas hasn’t gotten far. He’s leaning against the side of the building, face buried in his hands, letting himself be found.

“Cas?” he asks, tentatively. “What’s wrong, man?”

Cas turns to him, levels a glare. “You attempted to initiate intercourse with the woman at the bar.” 

Dean wants to laugh, but realizes it would be bad timing. “I...what?” he asks instead, confused. 

“Earlier this evening, you asked her how she was doing, and you used your sultry voice. I am well enough versed in human social customs to recognize a mating invitation when I see one.” 

At this point, Dean does laugh. “Cas, buddy, it was nothing. I was being friendly, that’s all.” 

“But that’s the point, Dean. Why is it always ‘nothing’ to you? Why can you throw yourself out there like that, making offers like promises and then pulling them back? Have you ever considered the impact that it might have on the recipients of your advances?”

“Um...what?”

Cas sighs, buries his tousled head in his hands, lets himself slide down the wall until he’s sitting on the ground, knees to his chest and back against the bricks. 

Dean’s chest constricts at the sight of Cas--powerful, hurricane, true-form-the-size-of-the-Chrysler-building Cas slumped in on himself, shoulder shaking as he sniffs. 

How the hell did he break the angel? 

“Okay, dude, I’m not trying to be a dick here, but I don’t know what the hell you are talking about.” 

Cas looks up at him, blue eyes sad and weary. “You, Dean. I’m talking about you. You shouldn’t look at people like that unless you mean it.” He pauses, looks away. “You shouldn’t look at me like that unless you mean it.” 

And just like that, Dean can’t breathe. Did Cas really just say that? Confess his jealousy over Dean? Admit to wanting him in the way that Dean does too, but won’t ever admit?

Dean wants to say everything at once, from, “What the hell Cas? Why didn’t you say this sooner?” to “I could say the same thing to you, you blue eyed bastard.” Then he's thinking: “What do you expect? You’ve never put yourself out there, never even made yourself an option. You expect me to hit on a Goddamn warrior of heaven without an invite? What kind of suicidal lunatic do you think I am?"”

Instead, he hears himself blurt, “I struck out hard core back there, if it makes you feel any better. The bartender I hit on was nerd. And a lesbian. And taken. Does that help?” 

Cas gives a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. Dean slides down the wall til they’re sitting side by side, arms touching. 

He rocks his shoulder into Cas, bumping him gently, trying to get him to look up. 

“Hey,” he says, quietly. “Hey. I...I didn’t know. You never said.” 

“There are a lot of things I refrain from saying,” Cas deadpans.

“What’s the point of holding back, though?” It is rhetorical. Dean is asking them both, posing the question to the empty side alley and the cool night air. 

They sit in the silence, it all sinks in. Images and sounds flash though Dean’s mind, surprisingly sharp and detailed in hindsight. He sees Cas fight a Rugaro by his side, sees the panic in Cas’ eyes when Dean is thrown hard into the ground. He sees Cas next to him at a diner, leaning into his space and asking blunt questions about the food on his plate. He sees them at night in one of their skeevy hotels rooms, Cas pretending to study the wallpaper like a gentleman while Dean gets undressed for the night. Dean wonders just how many nights Cas has stayed to literally watch over him and Sam while they sleep. Their protector. An angel watching over them, just like Mary had always said. 

In every memory of Cas the same gaze is there, that same, familiar, unwavering stare. Dean has always dismissed it as duty, as a matter of course.

But now, sitting next to a pissed off angel in a damp Portland alley, Dean sees the look for what it is: unguarded affection. Annoyance sometimes, but searching. Knowing. Familiarity. Desire.

He looks up, startled to see that familiar intense gaze. 

The epiphany is so sharp and sudden that he says it outloud: “I’m an idiot.” 

“Yes,” Cas nods, seriously, “you are.”

Dean is quiet for a minute, mapping out a strategy in his mind. Wondering if Cas will forgive him, give him a chance. Wondering if he has enough affection left in him to even try. He decides to take it one step at a time.

“So, how you doing tonight?” he asks with a grin.

Cas laughs, leans in to him a bit. “Better than before.”

“Come here,” says Dean, feeling new energy flow through his veins. “I’ve got an idea.” He jumps to his feet and pulls Cas with him, dusting off the angel’s trench coat. 

“Cas,” he says, trying to sound formal and sincere, “I’m sorry. And...” 

Their faces are already close, as always. For years the distance between them has been nothing more than a sidewalk waiting to be crossed. And now they’re here, once again, and he reaches across easily, pulls Cas in for a kiss. 

It is awkward, so awkward, because the angel has clearly never kissed anyone before. Jimmy certainly has, but the vessel and the angel are two different beings. Cas is hungry, everywhere, and his kisses end up spread all over Dean’s face, down his neck, wet and sloppy. 

“Whoa there, slow down baby,” Dean says, laughing. “Let me show you.” 

He backs Cas up against the wall, takes his stubbled face in both hands. Kisses him firmly with everything he has. He is thrilled when Cas kisses him back, and mostly doesn’t slobber all over him this time. 

Dean is surprised to feel hands at his waist, tugging insistently at his shirt. He was expecting to take things slow, to be on some sort of purity watch, but no. Cas is undressing him quickly, deftly, as if he has somehow learned this, too, from the pizza man. 

They are both shirtless, grinding in the alley, when Sam shows up. 

Cas looks up guiltily, giving Dean a little shove away as if to reclaim some measure of modesty. 

Sam looks a little scandalized and says, “Dean! Don’t corrupt the angel!” But he is smiling too, a great big sloppy smirk that says all too clearly, “I told you so.” 

Sam lingers for a second, rocking on his heels awkwardly and shoving oversized hands into his pockets. “So...I’ll just be inside then. If you want food or something...”

“Go away Sam,” Cas says, matter of factly. “Dean has finally made sexual advances on me, and I would like to take advantage of that fact.”

Sam groans and hurries back inside.

Dean smirks once he’s gone, turning Cas back toward him. “You want to take advantage of me, eh?” he asks. 

“Of course,” Cas says, still matter of fact. “But only if it is a mutual arrangement and desire.” 

“I’m not a court case,” Dean protests, teasing gently. But they go back to kissing, and don’t return inside for a very long time. 

~

The next day they put down a ghost in Laurelhurst park. It was a little girl who haunted the duck pond ever since she drowned there years ago, now playing pranks on the children who wander past. Sam had to wade through slimy green water to reach the island in the middle of the pond. He fell in twice, but it was worth it when he found the hair bow, washed up in the reeds, and burned it easily.

Then it's time to leave town, and they hit the road as usual. 

They won’t come back to the restaurant for awhile, but Dean will always remember it as belonging to him and Cas. It is their place--their first real fight, their first kiss. And another few firsts as well...

Dean still has no freaking idea what a ‘time lord’ is, but the Tardis Room in Portland Oregon is his new favorite place on the planet.


End file.
